Maggie visits Downing Street...

[max_tranmere]

I saw this on the teatime news, Dame Maggie visited Etonian Dave at no.10 this afternoon.

It is interesting this has happened on the very day when major meetings are taking place about all the cuts that need to be made - some of the biggest cuts ever it is reckoned. I wonder if Maggie, who now looks very frail, was advising Dave on how savage those cuts should be.

Isn't it ironic though that the whole Benefit dependancy culture started under her in the 1980's: people got used to not working, sleeping late and watching daytime TV, in fact a lot of the people she put on Benefit in the 1980's are STILL on Benefit now! She did her best to get as many people onto Incapacity Benefit as she could in order to massage the figures, and there has been a huge number of what is often called 'the hidden unemployed' on Incapacity ever since.

It would have been interesting to have been a fly on the wall at the Maggie & Dave summit this afternoon!

[alicia_fan_uk]

"Up North", Maggie is loved about as much as salad... I did see the footage, and I can't help thinking that Dave C looked like he just had his favourite old auntie round for tea (Asda Smartprice, 40p for a box of 80 - cutbacks and all that). HD pictures may show a lurid lipstick mark on his cheek...

Interesting point, Max, about the irony of "reduced state intervention" of the 1980s ultimately causing much, and prolonged, state intervention through subsidies/benefits etc. Effectively, was the impact just a timing difference?

Every new government has the answer, but the problem never really goes away.

[Von Boy]

Margaret Thatcher.... she was the best PM this country had since Churchill... and if you don't believe me... why did Gordon Brown invite her to Downing St.? why did Tony Blair say she was "inspired" in her approach to government...? eh...

All sides respected her... if not for her policies for her drive to change the country for the better...

All parties now days have been created from her.... so there!!!

If you want a lefty party then this ain't the country for it!!!... job done!

[alicia_fan_uk]

I do love arguments ending in "so there!".

[Dave Wells]

Where are all the snipers when you fucking need em eh ?

[The Last Word]

I wonder if Dave's new pet Chihuahua, Cleggie, bit her?

[Von Boy]

Thats funny Dave... and what would the the 80's have looked like... lets hear the words of wisdom from you Dave... eh???...

6 months to get a telephone?????

[Arginald Valleywater]

Funny how Dave's parents public school choice is seen as worth mentioning. Both the Millibands went to Oxford, Darling went to Loretto the most expensive school in Scotland and VP Blair went to Fettes College, the second most expensive school in Scotland. Would you rather have a pisshead chav who never bothered going to school or a well educated family man?

[Deano!]

Von Boy wrote:

> Margaret Thatcher.... she was the best PM this country had
> since Churchill (snip)

Exactly. She won 3 consecutive elections and left the UK in far better shape than she found it.

Suppose Labour had remained in power throughout the 80's. Perhaps the 'Thatcher Haters' might like to think what Britain would be like now for everyday people?

[Ned]

Out of interest, are you old enough to be able to remember Thatcher in power? I mean really remember her?

We have no manufacturing base in this country because of her government and the loss of manufacturing industry is one thing Common Dave keeps banging on about. 18 years of fucking the industrial base of this country in the arse under the Tories led to Labour rebuilding the economy in service industries and finance. And look where that's got us.